Chapter Text
“You can’t quit two days before the biggest show of our entire lives!”
James casually taps his cigarette off in the tray sat in the middle of Lance’s dining table, as if they’re discussing the weather rather than the catastrophic implosion of their band.
“O-kay,” he says slowly, “well, I am, so…?”
“No the fuck you are not.” Lance grits, knuckles turning white where he grips the edge of the table. He’s seriously considering flipping the entire thing over.
“Guys,” Hunk cuts in quickly, both hands raised in a peacekeeping gesture, “I know everybody’s stressed right now, but maybe we should all just calm down and—”
Pidge's chair screeches violently across the floor.
“I’m gonna kill him,” they announce, already halfway over the table. “I am going to fucking kill him!”
Hunk catches them around the middle before they can launch all five feet of themselves directly at James.
“Oh, c’mon, don’t be like that,” James drawls, leaning backwards on his chair. Lance kind of hopes it topples over. “I got a better offer, so I took it. It’s just business, you know? Nothing personal.”
Lance stares in disbelief. Nothing personal??? They have spent the past five years of their lives hauling amps through back alleys together. Five years playing half-empty dive bars that smelled like piss and sweat and sour beer. Five years dragging this band toward something that finally—finally—looked like it might become real.
And James is sitting there acting like he’s quitting a job at McDonalds.
“From who?” Lance squawks indignantly. “Who could possibly be worth ditching us for?”
A slow, sinister grin spreads across James’s face as he exhales smoke through his nose, looking like some kind of evil pop-punk demon.
“Ever heard of Sincline?”
And god-motherfucking-dammit Lance wants nothing more than to sock that stupid grin right off his dumb face, because everyone has heard of Sincline. They’ve been absolutely everywhere for the past year—millions of streams, festival appearances, billboard features, matching leather jackets. The whole pretentious indie-rock package.
And James is leaving them for that, a mere two days before the biggest performance of their entire lives. He’s probably going to get his very own leather jacket and everything.
Lance tries to laugh, but it comes out sounding more like a hysterical yelp.
“Oh, cool,” he says. “Awesome, actually. Impeccable timing, man.”
James shrugs. “The timing’s not ideal, sure.”
“Not ideal?” Pidge echoes, slumping back in defeat. “Not ideal?”
“Dude, the show is this weekend!” Lance cries. “We finally get a shot in front of actual, legitimate labels, and you decide now is the perfect time to fuck off?”
James sighs dramatically, like they’re exhausting him.
“You’re overreacting.”
Lance actually sees red for a second.
Because of course he says that.
Of course James gets to sit there, smoking in Lance’s rental, acting all detached and superior as if the past five years have just been a fucking stepping stone in his inevitable journey to fame.
“Oh, god.” Hunk sighs, dropping face-down onto the dining table. And ‘oh god’ is right, Lance thinks. Because this wasn’t just any old gig James was ditching, this was the gig. Industry people, producers, journalists. Their golden fucking ticket to the chocolate factory—their chance to finally become something bigger than a local band living off instant noodles and a dream.
And now their lead guitarist was abandoning them for some bigger, brighter, shinier opportunity like none of that meant anything to him.
“We’re so fucked,” Pidge declares.
“We are not fucked,” Hunk says automatically, voice muffled against the table.
“We are monumentally fucked.”
“We’ll figure something out.”
“In two days?” Lance says, standing up fast it leaves him dizzy, because if he sits still for even a moment longer, someone is going to get hurt. He begins to pace frantic laps around the dining table instead. “I hate to say it, man, but Pidge is right. We’re doomed.”
“Keith could probably do it.”
The room goes dead silent.
Slowly, all three of them turn to look at James, who, judging by the sounds coming from his phone, is playing Subway Surfers.
Pidge blinks. “Who the fuck is Keith?”
There’s that smug little grin again. “Oh, just my ex. You’ve probably heard of him.”
Lance scoffs immediately. “Yeah, alright, buddy.”
“No, really. Look.” James pulls up something on his phone screen and tosses it into the middle of the table.
Pidge leans in first, adjusting their glasses as if their vision has suddenly failed them.
“…Oh, shit.”
Hunk peeks over their shoulder.
“…No way.”
Lance leans over and snatches the phone right out of Pidge’s hands to see what all the fuss is about.
And—
Oh.
Oh, fuck off.
There, glowing like a digital angel on James’s phone screen, is a photo of a man on stage with a guitar slung low across his hips, taken from right up against the barricade. The man is grainy and dark, a little blurry, but somehow still unfairly gorgeous. Inky black hair, wild and unruly where it fans around his face, all sharp angles and shadow. Dark eyes glinting like obsidian in the stage light. A small, devilish smile, just enough to reveal the slight snaggle of a canine.
And, for some absurd reason, he has the sexiest neck Lance has ever seen in his entire life. He’s shockingly, devastatingly beautiful—the walking manifestation of some poor bastard’s wildest wet dream. Not Lance’s, though. Obviously.
More importantly, Lance recognizes him immediately. It’s Keith Kogane: underground music scene prodigy and infamous Beck from Victorious lookalike. He’s like some strange, elusive creature that shows up without warning, attached to a random touring band nobody expected him to be with just to play one show that goes viral overnight, and then vanish in a cloud of smoke for the next six months. He never interviews, never posts, never shows up anywhere unless he absolutely must (which, naturally, makes people even more obsessed with him).
And, most annoyingly of all: he’s the younger brother of Takashi Shirogane. Super producer, platinum-hit machine, music industry messiah—the only man on Earth who could pick any old guy out of a crowd and have him in a Coachella lineup within weeks. So, basically, Keith is a nepo baby industry plant bastard who’s only famous because of his brother and deserves literally none of his fame.
Lance shoots James a scrutinising look.
“As if you dated Keith Kogane, bro.”
“Yeah, man,” James shrugs, like admitting to dating one of the most notoriously elusive musicians in the alternative scene is somehow casual conversation. “We were high school sweethearts for like a year and a half. He wrote a song about me and everything.”
Then, after a beat:
“He’s, like, really into choking.”
And with a neck like that, Lance supposes you’d have to be.
Pidge scoffs. “You are so full of shit.”
“I mean, believe what you want, I guess.” James barely seems to be listening anymore, attention already back on his phone. “Anyway, he kinda owes me one after I let him crash at my place for, like, three months after he dropped out of college to have his little burnt-out-gifted-kid phase.”
Lance narrows his eyes.
Pidge looks deeply unconvinced.
Hunk goes back to being facedown.
“Well, folks,” James says, grinding his cigarette out in the ashtray, “good luck with all that! I’ve gotta run to rehearsal.”
Pidge stares at him in disbelief as he stands, like maybe they can explode him with their mind if they think hard enough. Instead, he just lifts his arms above his head in a slow stretch until something in his back cracks audibly. The motion is casual, unhurried, infuriating.
“That’s it?” They ask incredulously. “You destroy the band and just… leave?”
James huffs out a quiet laugh, slinging his bag over one shoulder like he hasn’t just detonated the past five years of their lives in under twenty minutes. “Bit dramatic.”
Lance blinks at him.
Then, with all the sincerity he can possibly muster, says, “From the bottom of my heart, James Griffin: fuck you.”
James clutches at his chest in mock offense. “Aw,” he coos, “I’ll miss you too.”
And as he’s going to leave, already halfway out the door, he pauses.
“Oh, by the way,” he adds, almost as an afterthought, “I texted Keith, he said he’ll be here in a few.”
“Just fuck off, James.”
“Gladly.” He grins, bright and insufferable. “Tell Keithy I said hello!”
The door slams shut behind him.
“Go to hell!” Pidge calls out after him, to absolutely no effect.
And just like that, he’s gone. Five years of history reduced to cigarette ash in the tray Lance had thrifted when he first moved here for James. Lance doesn’t even smoke!
The apartment sits in stunned silence for approximately three seconds before all hell breaks loose.
“It’s over. We’re doomed.”
“Lance, please—”
“He’s right,” Pidge groans, throwing their head back to stare helplessly at the water-damaged ceiling. “I’m gonna be stuck working at fucking GameStop for the rest of my life.”
Lance collapses bonelessly back into his chair, cradling his head in both hands.
This is it. This is how it ends.
No blaze of glory, no rockstar drug overdose, no dramatic tour bus crash, not even a viral sex scandal. Just… James Griffin being a dick.
Hunk turns his head sideways against the wood, looking deeply exhausted. “Do you think I could learn how to play guitar in two days?”
“Bud…” Lance sighs, “you know I love you.”
Hunk winces. “Yeah.”
“Oh! Oh!”
Lance peeks at Pidge through his fingers, who’s bolted upright so fast their glasses have slipped halfway down their nose. “What about that guy from Hunk’s cousin’s church band?”
Hunk finally lifts his head. “Jared?”
“Yeah, whatever—could he do it?”
“I dunno,” Hunk grimaces, “he only really does acoustic hillsong covers...”
Lance watches the light fade from Pidge’s eyes as they hear the word ‘hillsong’.
“…I kind of feel like that’s worse than no guitarist at all,” they say.
Lance nods solemnly. “Desperate times, desperate measures, I guess.”
“Okay, but guys,” Hunk says carefully, “what if Keith Kogane really does show up?”
Lance immediately waves him off.
“Keith Kogane is not showing up to my shitty little one-bedroom apartment, man,” he says, because Keith Kogane has better things to do—like wearing eyeliner and grooming his stupidly luscious mullet. And he is definitely, most certainly, absolutely not showing up on Lance’s doorstep at the drop of a hat just because his ex asked nicely.
Hunk throws both his hands up. “James did say they used to date, so there’s a non-zero chance.”
Pidge snorts. “I feel like that makes it even less likely he’d show up, if anything.”
And just as Lance opens his mouth to respond, there’s a knock at the door. A short, sharp rap-rap-rap that cuts clean through the noise and leaves Lance’s jaw hanging open like an idiot.
The whole room falls silent.
Nobody breathes.
Nobody moves.
“…Did somebody order food?” Hunk whispers.
“With what money?” Lance hisses.
“Well, are you gonna answer it?” Pidge asks, making urgent shooing motions towards the door.
“Why do I have to answer it?”
Pidge gestures helplessly at the room around them. “Because this is your apartment!”
“But what if—”
Another knock, louder this time. More insistent.
Lance mutters a prayer in Spanish for the first time since he was fifteen as he rises from his chair on legs that do not, in any meaningful sense, belong to him anymore.
The short walk from the dining table to the front door feels a lot like a death march.
Behind him, he can hear Hunk breathing heavily through his nostrils like a stressed-out horse, and Pidge has gone eerily quiet, which is somehow worse.
When Lance finally reaches the door, he just sort of… stands there, staring at it.
It’s a normal door.
Cheap wood, peeling paint around the frame, a lock that sticks if you don’t jiggle it. Nothing to be afraid of, and yet…
Lance looks over his shoulder, one last time.
Hunk gives him a shaky thumbs up. Pidge is biting their nails down to the quick. Useless, both of them.
He turns back around, wraps one very sweaty hand around the doorknob, takes a deep breath, and—
“Oh, fuck me dead.”
Standing there beneath the yellow porch light, moths beating themselves senseless against the bulb overhead, is Keith Fucking Kogane: a beat-up bomber jacket hanging off his shoulders and a guitar case strapped to his back.
And, somehow, the blurry photo on James’s phone had not done him justice. Not even close.
Because Keith Kogane’s eyes are not dark at all, actually. They’re violet. Literally violet—the deep, foreboding shade of storm clouds rolling in at dusk, or the bloom of a bruise beneath skin, or… whatever. The kind of colour Lance didn’t even know eyes could be.
Keith blinks those violet fucking eyes at him.
“Um…?” He says, and his voice is low and a little rough around the edges, like maybe he smokes too much or maybe God just has favourites.
Lance has to steady himself on the doorframe.
Behind him, there is an unmistakable scuffle. He barely registers Hunk’s hand landing on his shoulder, or the brush of Pidge’s head as they duck beneath his arm.
Keith’s gaze flicks between the three of them—Lance, Pidge, and Hunk all standing there, just staring, like absolute imbeciles.
Something cautious shifts across his face.
“…I think I should—"
Just as he begins to step back, Pidge’s hand shoots out with the speed of a striking cobra, grabbing a fistful of bomber jacket and yanking him bodily across the threshold before he can escape.
Keith makes a startled sound, and Hunk immediately jumps into action, slamming the door shut behind him with a bang that rattles the walls. Meanwhile, Lance is left plastered against the wall, just trying to stay out of the way.
Keith Kogane is standing there, in Lance’s apartment, both hands raised as if he’s being held hostage—which, to be fair, he kind of is.
Pidge points an accusatory finger at him like it’s a loaded weapon.
“You dated James Griffin?” They demand immediately.
Keith blinks, visibly taken aback.
“Briefly.”
Pidge scrunches up their face. “Why?”
Keith huffs a laugh through his nose and drops both hands into his jacket pockets. “Your guess is as good as mine.”
“Never mind his dating history,” Hunk cuts in, “we need to hurry up and get our shit sorted right now if we’re going to make this work.”
Before Keith can protest—or flee—Hunk takes him by the shoulders and steers him towards Lance’s living room, which has, through financial necessity, also become their rehearsal space and recording studio (he has no idea how he hasn’t been evicted for noise violations yet). Lance can’t even watch TV without half the screen being obscured by a drum kit.
Hunk is already in full crisis-management mode, bouncing wildly between profusely thanking Keith and info-dumping about their situation, while Pidge slips in little jabs at James wherever they can. Keith seems to be nodding along, ridiculously nonchalant for someone who has effectively just been kidnapped and handed the fate of their entire band.
And Lance just stands there, watching the disastrous scene unfolding on his sagging sofa, feeling immensely conflicted.
“Look, I’m sorry,” Lance interrupts, because he simply cannot allow this nonsense to go on any longer.
Everyone stops talking, attention turning on Lance, who is standing there with his hands planted firmly on his hips.
“There is just no way that this guy is gonna be able to memorise our entire setlist in just three days.” Lance makes a flippant gesture at Keith, who remains completely unreadable except for the slightest crease in his brow.
“Lance, please.” Hunk pinches the bridge of his nose.
“Guys, come on,” Lance throws his hands up—he doesn’t make the rules! “I’m just being realistic!”
Keith leans back to give Lance a scrutinising look, arms folding across his chest.
Lance wishes he wouldn’t do that. It makes his biceps look—
Irrelevant.
“We’re better off finding someone who isn’t a… you know.” Lance gestures vaguely.
Keith tilts his head, arching one dark brow expectantly. “Go on.”
And Lance can’t help but lower his voice to a whisper, almost as if he’s about to utter a slur: “…a nepo baby.”
Keith barks out a short, disbelieving laugh.
“Would you rather Jared from church?” Hunk accuses, sounding like an angry mother.
“Well, no, but—”
“Do you want to give up our one and only chance at success?” Pidge cuts in.
“Obviously not—”
“Then shut up!” They say in near perfect harmony.
So, Lance does. He sits there on his second-hand Persian rug, sulking in silence until someone drops the microphone into his lap like a punishment. With a grumble, he hauls himself to his feet, shooting Keith a glare as he unpacks a cherry-red electric guitar that looks like it costs more than Lance’s entire setup.
And there they are, Pidge wedged behind a drum kit crammed into the corner, fiddling with their drumsticks; Hunk on bass with cords snaking around his feet; Keith slinging that obscenely expensive guitar over one shoulder; and Lance, front and centre with a mic in hand.
“Try to keep up,” Lance snarks into the mic, glaring side-long at Keith.
Keith doesn’t even look offended. He just lets out a quiet huff of laughter and smirks, like Lance has said something vaguely amusing instead of openly hostile.
“I’ll do my best.”
Pidge counts them in on their drumsticks before Lance has the chance to run his mouth anymore. One, two, three, four!
And then Keith opens.
Not adequately, not well enough to get by, and certainly not with the hesitant fumbling Lance has been banking on this entire time… he opens perfectly.
The riff cuts clean through Lance’s living room, bright and biting and exactly right, Keith’s slender fingers moving with practised precision.
What the hell.
Lance almost misses his cue because he’s too busy staring. He grits his teeth and takes a breath.
“Let me know that I’ve done wrong, when I’ve known this all along,”
Keith keeps playing, blending seamlessly into the spaces between Pidge’s drums and Hunk’s bass like he’s always been there, like he belongs. Which he absolutely does not.
If this guy thinks he’s gonna steal the spotlight in Lance’s very own band, he’s got another thing coming.
“I’ll keep you my dirty little secret,” he leans into the mic, voice sharp and clear and so much bigger than the room deserves, because he knows how to command the stage—even if that stage is his own living room and there’s Chinese takeout boxes from last night on the side table.
Pidge catches on immediately, grinning as they hit harder.
Hunk follows with ease, layering in richer chords.
And Keith is… still right there with them. Hm.
Here’s the problem: when Lance pushes, Keith pushes right back—not competitively, but in a way that makes the music swell around them, filling gaps Lance didn’t even realise were there, catching every little vocal flourish and answering it with guitar, almost like a conversation.
And Lance hates that he loves how it feels. It feels like jumping and finding something there to catch you, like whatever Lance throws out, Keith will be there to catch it and throw it back. It almost—it almost makes him sound better, as if he’s been holding back this entire time and Keith has, like, awoken the beast or something.
They crash through the chorus, louder and harder than they have any right to be on the first run, and Lance spins on his heel during the bridge, just for a second. Just to see.
Keith is bent over his guitar, dark hair falling into his eyes, fingers moving fast and precise over the fretboard like it’s nothing. The most infuriating part is that he doesn’t even seem to be showing off. Not intentionally, anyway. The set of his face has softened into something easy and unguarded.
That’s when he looks up, right at Lance—still playing, still perfect—and smiles. Not the sly smirk or the smug grin from earlier, it’s just the slightest hint of teeth, this small, private thing that says there you are.
Lance misses his next line entirely.
Even over all the noise, he hears Pidge laughing at him.
And Keith, the bastard, never misses a beat.
They slam into the final chorus. Keith drives into the last riff, Pidge crashes closing cymbals, Hunk holds it all together, Lance belts the final line into the mic like he has something to prove, and then—
It all cuts out at once. Lance’s ears ring with the sudden absence, the only sound his own breathing in the mic, heavy and uneven. For a second, nobody moves.
Then Lance fixes his gaze on Keith, squinting and scrutinising.
“You cheated.” Lance accuses, pointing the mic right at him. “You knew that song already. There is no other explanation for what just happened.”
Keith just grins, and there’s that stupid snaggletooth, and oh god Lance is trying really hard not to find that attractive.
“I’m just a fast learner.”
“Nobody is that fast.” Lance snaps. “Especially not nepo babies.”
Keith only shrugs, like he knows something Lance doesn’t. Which is… fucking infuriating, to say the least. Because this asshole has absolutely no right to waltz—or, be dragged—into Lance’s apartment in the middle of a full-blown career crisis and tear through one of their songs like he’s been playing it with them for years. Like he wrote the damn thing!
Lance decides that the only plausible explanation for this is that Keith Kogane is secretly a diehard fan but is too pretentious to admit it. That’s got to be it.
Keith tips his head to the side, eyes glinting in the low light.
“What?” he says. “You said to keep up.”
Lance can only stare at him.
Hunk shrugs. “He’s famous for a reason, man.”
“Yeah,” Lance shoots back instantly, “and that reason is his brother.”
“Lance,” Hunk says patiently, “please stop berating the man who is saving your entire career out of the kindness of his heart.”
Keith ducks his head like he’s trying to hide a smile. The gesture might have been charming if Lance didn’t despise the guy.
“Whatever.” Lance mutters, and then to Keith: “This isn’t over.”
Keith glances up through his hair, and he’s doing a pretty shitty job at hiding that smirk.
Pidge clicks their sticks together impatiently. “Cool. Anyway. Next song?”
♫⋆｡♪ ₊˚♬ ﾟ.
The next song is even worse, because it sounds even better.
So, they keep going. One song turns into another, then another. Someone opens a bag of chips, then a bottle of something stronger that Pidge finds in the back of Lance’s fridge with a triumphant shout. They rehearse the entire setlist until Lance’s throat hurts and Pidge’s arms get sloppy and Hunk complains about losing feeling in his fingers.
By midnight, Lance comes to a horrifying realisation: he is having fun.
The kind that sneaks up on you so gradually, so begrudgingly, that you don’t even realise it’s there until it’s too late and you’re smiling despite yourself.
His living room is a disaster of kicked off shoes, tangled cables and empty bottles. Pidge is hogging the couch, Hunk is laughing so hard at something stupid he can hardly breathe, and Keith is sitting cross-legged on Lance’s rug with a beer balanced against his knee, smiling at some dry remark.
And Lance, to his immense dismay, can’t remember the last time he felt like this. Easy, loud, alive. Like the band is something fun again instead of something fragile and half-broken and constantly one bad day away from falling apart. Like being 20-something isn’t actually a never-ending nightmare, but an exciting and fleeting period of time with endless possibilities stretching out forever, just waiting to be pursued.
This is all Keith’s fault.
♫⋆｡♪ ₊˚♬ ﾟ.
Somewhere around three in the morning, they finally call it. Same time tomorrow is agreed upon through a haze of yawns and half-finished sentences, and then the apartment empties out in stages until Keith is the only one left. Of course.
Lance lingers awkwardly by the door as Keith slips into his jacket and swings his guitar case over his shoulder. He’s halfway out the door when he suddenly stops, digging his phone out of his back pocket.
“Hey, could I get your number?” he says.
And Lance’s brain short circuits for a moment.
“…Pardon?”
Keith just holds the phone out to him, contacts app already open and waiting.
“So I can contact you? About the band?” he clarifies when Lance just continues to stand there and stare.
“Oh—right. That. Obviously.”
Lance ignores the way his ears burn hot as he takes the phone and fumbles his number in. When Keith takes it back, he pauses, one brow lifting slightly.
“Loverboy Lance?” he reads aloud.
“That’s me.” Lance says, offering a nervous smile that he hopes reads as charming.
Keith looks up. And now he’s back to sly smirks and smug grins, looking at Lance like he’s not entirely sure whether he’s joking or not, but has decided to roll with it anyway.
“Uh-huh,” he says. “Well. See you tomorrow, Loverboy.”
“See you.” Lance croaks, because his throat has suddenly gone dry. From singing. No other reason.
And then he’s gone, door clicking softly shut behind him, and Lance is left staring at the the empty space with his thoughts running a million trillion billion miles per hour—because how did Keith pickup their setlist so fast? Has he somehow heard their music before? Is he actually kind of talented? Is he objectively, scientifically hot? Are pigs flying?
Lance decides that it’ll all just have to wait until tomorrow, because the second he collapses face-first into his unmade bed, he promptly falls asleep in his clothes.